City Still Waiting for Street Ad Guidelines

By Yevgeny Fyodorov and Nadezhda Zaitseva

Vedomosti

Published: February 6, 2013 (Issue # 1745)

YEKATERINA KUZMINA / VEDOMOSTI According to the development strategy, billboards such as these on Moskovsky Prospekt would be subject to new regulations.

Approval of new guidelines for outdoor advertising in St. Petersburg, which market players have been waiting for since last year, has still not been given.

The Committee for Architecture and City Planning (KGA) and the Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (KGIOP) have declined to approve the strategy for the development of the outdoor advertising market, according to a source in the advertising sector.

The strategy for the development of outdoor advertising in St. Petersburg for the period 2013 to 2017, which was presented in November 2012 by the Committee for Press and Media Relations, envisages in particular the dismantling of large advertising structures in historical areas of the city.

The distance between advertising structures should be from 25 to 400 meters, depending on the formats involved, while the standard 1.2 meter by 1.8 meter “city-format” illuminated billboards seen on streets and at bus stops around the city should be located a minimum of three meters from the nearest building. According to the source, officials are not satisfied with the distance from monuments currently stipulated by the document. The KGIOP and KGA have established that the document’s definitions of zones allocated for advertising contradict municipal law No. 820 from 2009, “Concerning the limits of protective zones around sites of cultural heritage on the territory of St. Petersburg and the modes of use of land within the limits of these zones,” said the manager of a city advertising agency.

KGIOP has submitted the strategy to be finalized along with a number of remarks, said Natella Davydova, a representative of the committee.

The document is currently awaiting approval by the KGA and the KGIOP, according to the representative of the Committee for Press and Media Relations, Maria Kirillova. The KGA declined to answer questions from Vedomosti on Thursday.

At the end of December the strategy was discussed in the Chamber of Commerce by officials and market players. Alexander Lobkov, chairman of the Press Committee, announced at the time that the document would be submitted to City Hall by year’s end, and that bidding for space on the city’s advertising structures would be held in April-May of this year. Around 97 percent of the city’s existing advertising spaces will be put on the market, and following dismantling and bidding, around 12,000 advertising structures will remain, he said. According to Lobkov, there are currently 14,500 advertising structures in the city, 4,500 of which have expired their placement period. For the time being, a moratorium has been placed on the dismantlement of these structures, three market players told Vedomosti.

The majority of agreements concerning the placement of outdoor advertising expired last year, said Dmitry Ganibalov, marketing director at Volgobaltmedia advertising agency. According to Ganibalov, the longer the strategy remains unapproved, the longer advertisers will continue to operate extra-legally.